Some more quick thoughts about Bannerlord:
I’ve been in a number of large (500v500) battles now, and can safely say they are far better than in Warband. The AI is smarter, the battlefields more varied, and the performance is already great. I’m sure all of this will continue to improve during Early Access, but even now these battles are awesome.
On a similar note, sieges are also much improved, in many of the same ways. The AI here does need some work (soldiers run past enemies to get to the location they want to reach), but again compared to Warband they are far more fun. One interesting note is that defending a castle isn’t a huge boost in strength; you can beat a slightly stronger army, but its not close to as difficult to take a castle as it was in Warband. I’d like to see defense boosted just a bit, especially making breaching the walls take a little longer. Right now ladders go up really quick, and then its just a melee on the walls.
Itemization is ok, but feels a little too easy to reach the best gear too quickly. You also progress from junk gear to the highest tier stuff too fast, with little room or reason to use the mid-tier items. That said, the feel of different weapons is very noticeable, and becoming a master with one item doesn’t instantly make you a master overall at combat, which I really like.
Finally, the game has had a patch fixing issues daily, which has been great. I have not had a technical issue after the first day, and none of the smaller issues have been enough to impact my enjoyment of the game.
Hardcore Casual 
I’m really enjoying it as well, the things that have bothered me have mostly been UI things like half the screen getting taken up when in an army/captured, or the amount of time I spend looking around taverns for the random broker because you don’t get any cunning experience if you auto sell prisoners. I also get unreasonably old-man annoyed by the main menu saying resume game instead of load game as well but I may be being picky at this point.
You know what a potato I’m running the game on, well surprisingly I only run into one issue. For some reason when the 2 armies first collide I get about 5-10 seconds of stuttering game play then it goes back to being normal, the strange thing is it doesn’t seem to matter if it is a 10v10 or a 300v300 size battle. 1 other guy I know said he gets the same thing and his rig is pretty decent so hoping this is something that can be fixed, but for now it’s not stopping me enjoying the game.
The things I don’t like game play wise are how just sending your troops in gives miles better exp than if you take part, it doesn’t even seem close. Also how money making becomes so automated, you either set up a shop in a town and then it auto generates revenue or you send your companion off on a caravan and see him 10 years later, neither really require more input from you than a couple of dialogue choices.
I was playing through on easy first time through to find my feet, got to clan level 3 and the dragon banner and attacked a few castles with the southern empire before restarting with everything set the realistic, enjoying the additional difficulty a lot more. I got captured 5 times before I could get enough men together to be safe wandering the world.
Yea they need to fix the xp between auto and manual, especially because auto only safely works vs looters. To that end I’m hoping they also add some more neutral enemy types, and slow down the move speed of the damn bandits.
The army stutter, is that only when you fight or any battle in the world?
Any, even happens in the arena 2v2.
I notice they have fixed having to sell prisoners in the tavern itself tonight, unsure which patch addressed that but good to see the speed they are rolling fixes out.
I am getting a bit of a kenshi vibe with all my companions and their ridiculously high stats, I feel like the weakest character in the entire world.
The latest beta patch completely removes all the stuttering for me, it plays really smoothly now. Just taken part in a fight with 1300 troops and not a problem, even on my potato.
Syncaine, did you ever play Albion? I just started and it is quite good. PvP, focus on guilds, etc.
Really briefly during beta at one point. Didn’t click with me honestly.